San Francisco’s Beating Heart Is on Display at Outside Lands

“If you’re going to San Francisco, be sure to wear some flowers in your hair.” That iconic line from Scott McKenzie’s classic 1967 Summer of Love anthem welcomed a new era of collective consciousness at a pivotal time of national upheaval. It’s not unlike the moment we face today.

The song’s call to disarm felt freshly relevant to me as I ventured north from Southern California to attend this weekend’s Outside Lands music festival in Golden Gate Park. It was my tenth time at the event, but my first since COVID. My goal was to experience great music but also to soak in the city’s vibe firsthand.

For quite some time, San Francisco has been conservative media’s Exhibit A to demonstrate the purported decline of major American cities. But in much-needed counter-programming to that stark, dark Fox News narrative, it was the pure joy of open, nonjudgmental humanity and glorious nature that took center stage inside Golden Gate Park for Outside Lands’ 15th year.

Consider this the Summer of Love, 2023 edition. Lana Del Rey? More like Lana Del Slay as she channeled the 1960s in a transfixing set before a worshipful, screaming-and-crying crowd of fans. Janelle Monáe displayed her sweeping talent on the main stage as she brought a very un-Lana-like “summertime happiness” vibes in full swimsuit and goggles. And Megan Thee Stallion brought the energy and electricity as she engaged with the crowd, signing grad caps in between her Hot Girl numbers.

Like other major music festivals, including the BottleRock event a bit further north in Napa that I covered just a few months back, Outside Lands offers real-world solace and escape from our digitally bombarded daily lives. Festivals celebrate more than just music: It’s about displaying a diversity of life and lifestyles. They offer both artists and audiences a much-needed opportunity to physically connect on a grand scale with humanity’s grand palette. And what better place to do that than in San Francisco?

Despite McKenzie’s song, if you’re looking for flowers in hair, you’re better off at Coachella. Outside Lands drew an older, earthier crowd. But it is certainly an experiential event. A new open-air dance venue called Dolores celebrated the queer and trans communities. It featured a full-on local drag show on Saturday, enthralling the cross-spectrum crowd. Dolores joined Grass Lands, the first curated cannabis experience at a major U.S. music festival, highlighting how festivals can provide safe havens for all to express themselves without judgment or fear — necessary ingredients to fuel both creativity and community.

Real-world human interaction, even amongst the glorious trees, doesn’t mean that technology can’t be used to enhance the festival’s overall impact. Tech built in the Bay Area has transformed music and festivals for decades both in obvious ways (increasingly frenetic lights and body-blowing bass beats), and less obvious ways (cashless payments with wristbands). This year, driverless vehicles from Cruise and Waymo shuttled passengers to the festival gates. A tidal wave of lasers flooded the awestruck crowd at Zedd’s Friday night DJ set, enhanced by the persistent mystical night-time mist that engulfed the crowd all weekend. Nature and tech worked together to elevate the experience.

All of this inherent positivity contrasts sharply with the doom-scrolling narrative that San Francisco and big cities everywhere are over. That kind of dangerous rhetoric, if it takes hold, could have profound implications for the city’s decades-long reputation as being one of the world’s leading hubs of creativity, innovation and inclusion. The Bay Area is the home of tech giants like Apple, Google and Twitter (now X) that have transformed the media and entertainment industry over the past several years.

But here’s the good news: Despite ample criticism that can be heaped onto Elon Musk (the subject of two of my recent columns), I applaud him for one thing: He remains committed to keeping his company formerly known as Twitter in the heart of San Francisco. In a recent X (is that what we now call tweets?), Musk wrote that “It is important for more people to come to work in San Francisco or the rest of the city can’t survive.” That’s a critical stake in the ground for other tech giants to follow.

And so far, it seems like others in the tech world are heeding his call. San Francisco is now home to 20 of Forbes’ 50 most promising artificial intelligence companies, many of which will drive the next wave of transformation in the worlds of media and entertainment. That wave will challenge the entire creative community but also offer entirely new modes of creation and engagement.

So what’s the verdict on San Francisco itself? Obviously, economic survival comes first in the hierarchy of needs before creativity and innovation can thrive, and daunting obstacles remain. Yet median rents for one-bedroom apartments still sit at around $3,000, double the national average, which suggests a lot of people want to come to San Francisco. The city’s unemployment rate is still low at 3%. And yet those statistics stand in stark contrast with the economic pain visible on the streets of San Francisco.

Outside Lands represents an important constant amid the chaos, serving as an important showcase for artists, creativity and diversity in Northern California. It also serves as a clarion call to innovators to cast aside the acrimony of alarmists and think different, as Steve Jobs put it, about San Francisco.

So while I disagree with Musk on virtually everything these days, we concur that the tech community which built up its trillion-dollar-plus valuations based on the concentration of talent in and around San Francisco should not abandon it now. Talent and a shared commitment to a community built around creativity, innovation, and acceptance will give San Francisco the base it needs to thrive once again. That’s what will keep people coming to the city to seek their fortunes and futures, even as some who made it big there abandon the city to lower their tax bills in Austin or Miami.

Del Rey underscored the special place the city holds for her as she ended her magical set. She pointed out that her father and pastor were there to support her and expressed her gratitude for the opportunity to headline the event. Her fans volubly returned that gratitude, bound to the performer and to each other by the music reverberating through the mist and trees. It was a moment that could never be captured in ones and zeroes, even in a city built on bits and bytes.

For those of you interested in learning more, visit Peter’s firm Creative Media at creativemedia.biz and follow him on X/Twitter (@pcsathy). 

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